Suir Valley Ventures, the entrepreneur-led venture capital fund, which was launched in partnership with Shard Capital Partners LLP in February 2017, is pleased to announce it has invested €750,000 into Wia, one of the leading Internet of Things (‘IoT’) cloud platforms. In addition to Suir’s investment, Enterprise Ireland will be investing further funds into Wia, which is looking to establish its cloud platform as the enabling technology that powers the rapidly growing IoT market.
Wia’s ground-breaking IoT cloud platform enables developers to turn any type of sensing device into a secure, smart and useful application in a matter of minutes, generating considerable time and cost savings for teams who would have previously had to spend many months on 100,000s of lines of code to try to build out their own cloud infrastructure. Wia provides a vertically integrated offering incorporating management, data capture and storage, analysis, control, as well as the seamless integration of additional services and devices. In line with its strategy to become a one-stop provider of IoT infrastructure, later this year Wia plans to launch its latest product which will incorporate the world’s first off the shelf IoT billing system.
Launched in 2015, Wia’s award-winning cloud platform is today used by developers in over 85 countries. In addition, Wia has partnerships in place with leading technology companies including Sigfox, PubNub and Twilio, and plans to expand to the US later in the year. Today’s seed investment will be used to fund Wia’s continued global expansion and further investment into R&D of its technology platform.
In recognition of its pioneering work, in 2016 Wia was selected to join NDRC’s LaunchPad programme, winning their investor day. NDRC is an Irish Government funded agency which was established to invest in digital companies and start up teams with the potential to grow internationally. NDRC currently ranks as no.2 University Business Accelerator in the World and no. 1 University Business Accelerator in Europe by the UBI Global Index.
Founder & CEO Conall Laverty, 28, has previously developed and architected software solutions with Big Motive, Channel 4, BBC, Net-a-Porter, Cambridge Silicon Radio and Deezer. He attained a First Class Honours from Queen’s University in Computer Games Development. Mr Laverty has built a team of high calibre and expert professionals at Wia. They will be joined by Suir Valley’s Brian Kinane who has been appointed to Wia’s Board of Directors.
Today’s investment in Wia is Suir’s second since its launch. In March 2017, Suir, together with Kernel through the Bank of Ireland Kernel Capital Venture Funds and Enterprise Ireland, invested a combined total of €1 million in Immersive VR Education Limited, a developer of virtual reality (‘VR’) software and immersive experiences with a specific focus on education.
Barry Downes, Managing Partner – Suir Valley Ventures, said, “We are delighted to announce that we are leading the seed venture capital round for Wia. The Internet of Things (IoT) is an important focus area for the Fund and an area of tremendous growth and productivity for enterprises and the economy. Conall has led a superb team to develop a ground-breaking IoT platform that is the easiest and fasted way to link sensors and devices to develop IoT applications. Wia’s end-to-end platform provides full device and application management, security, data capture and storage, analysis, control, as well as the seamless integration of enterprise systems. We are looking forward to working with Conall and his team to help them rapidly expand the Wia business with developers and enterprises internationally.”
Conall Laverty, Founder & CEO of Wia, said, “We are thrilled to bring the experience and knowledge from Suir Valley Ventures as partners with us on a milestone in Wia’s journey. The Internet of Things, through which devices communicate with each other is playing an ever-increasing role in both corporate and domestic life around the world, and we believe our platform will take it to the next level”.
Niall McEvoy, Manager, HPSU ICT Dept., Enterprise Ireland said, “Wia is an innovative Irish start up that has made strong technical and commercial progress, developing world leading platform technology in the rapidly growing IoT space. The company is combining innovation with global ambition and Enterprise Ireland looks forward to continuing to work with them as they expand and scale in international markets”.
Speaking about Wia, CEO of NDRC Ben Hurley, said, “Wia offers a compelling product which enables connectivity and information-sharing between devices and sensors. They have a really strong team in place with deep technology expertise and clear ambition. From NDRC’s perspective the company’s potential and capacity for growth was clear when we invested in them initially in 2016 through our investment and acceleration programme, and then with further follow on funding this year. This announcement today will enable Wia to achieve continued employment growth here in Ireland and grow their business into new international markets in the future.”
ENDS